


Garden of Love

by Detavot



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: F/M, Happy relationships? Pffft, Manga & Anime, What's a Valentine's Day without angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 10:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17785946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detavot/pseuds/Detavot
Summary: A garden of innocence could bear many ugly truths.





	Garden of Love

    “What was love?” asked the classic movie. As the protagonist looked at the two loves of her life and her child, stuck in the middle with her heart torn, she made her decision. “Love was kindness, friendship, earned… If I stay, I will not be able to leave again. It is not wasted, only its laughter is enough for us…”

    While the cinema was not yet invented in this time, the never-ending song of this movie has been sung countless of times and shall remain as an endless cacophony, an endless static, for as long as time continues to exist. Gender and nationality matter not, as this song neglects care for such unimportant concepts. It all finds us, in the end.

    The first time they appeared, little Astre did not know what to think of them.

    He remembered how he was playing with the little wooden carts with his brother and Lizzy, she had smiled and thanked him when her imaginary horse had run off and he had offered her to ride in his own cart. Then it had suddenly become too hard to breathe. He started choking. Tears came to his eyes unwillingly as he started clawing at his throat, too caught up in his own state to hear Ciel and Lizzy’s screams. He was carried off, and only his mother and Aunt Ann witnessed it.

    Petals speckled with blood.

    The petals were beautiful. They were big, of course, which would explain why two of them had cut away all of his air supply. He looked at them in wonder as the question of how exactly they had even gotten in his throat slipped his mind. They were unblemished and perfectly white if one ignored the blood, their shape straight and with a more angular point. His eyes were wide in wonder. He had a warm but heavy feeling in his chest.

    He did not notice his father enter the room, nor did he notice the unadulterated fear in his father’s eyes.

    “It’s asthma,” Auntie Ann stated. She looked perfectly normal, considering she was lying through her teeth to everyone. Astre had been given a very severe talk about how dangerous it would be if he were to ever try to tell the truth to anyone--even Ciel, who he would trust everything with. But the fear in his mother’s expression and the anguish in his father’s eyes made him bow down, and carry the burden alone. “We must be careful in controlling it,” Auntie Ann continued, and Astre could tell she was now telling the truth, “or else… it will become lethal.” Ciel and Tanaka refused to leave him alone for as long as they were able after that. Astre did not know how to deal with it. So, he just pushed it to the back of his mind and smiled as he begged to play another game.

    During the torturous month, the petals did not return. He was grateful. He did not need to be choking on petals as he screamed and cried and struggled, and he did not need the untainted white to taunt him as his own purity was forcibly taken, never to be given back. He did not need Ciel worrying about him more than he already was. He kept his head low, though. Just in case. He checked the back of his mouth every time he felt an itch, ready to pull out any petals that might have surfaces before Ciel could see them even if it was so, so much more painful than letting them fall naturally--more painful than what the adults inflicted upon them.

    Embarrassingly, the petals came back a year after his return as Ciel Phantomhive. As he knelt and heaved, with Sebastian in a panicked state Ciel had never seen before and it terrified him, he looked at the blood-soaked petals.

    They had changed.

    It took a few days for the petals to remain clean enough for their colour and actual shape to be clear enough. Gone were the linear white petals of the colchicum, replaced by the light pink and irregular petals of the dog rose. _How original_.

    “Young Master…” Sebastian eyed the petals as if they would grow limbs to attack him, and avoided them like the plague when approaching him. Ciel did not want to admit just how much the clear avoidance of the petals unnerved and horrified him. If not even a demon would go near them… “Are you aware of what this is?”

    “No,” Ciel answered honestly, gasping for breath. “I’ve had it since my early childhood, all I know is that it must be kept a secret. You must tell no one--human or not, living or dead--of this, that is an order.” The familiar sting of the seal was comforting. “Do you know what this sickness could be?”

    “Yes, my Lord.”

    “Was that an answer to my order or to my question?”

“Both. Though it is most alarming… It appears you have the Hanahaki Disease.” Sebastian looked uneasy.

    “What the devil does that mean? Speak the Queen’s English, blasted demon! I want to know everything about this disease.” Sebastian lifted him up and laid him on the bed before answering.

    “It is a disease that is reserved for Grim Reapers. Should they fall in love with a mortal and it is unrequited, their punishment is to choke on the petals of flowers for being foolhardy enough to disobey their Gods for a fruitless chase. As you can see, it is most alarming and interesting to see you also have this disease… We could have used the contract to excuse this unheard occurrence, but you have had it even before that…”

    “What happens? To the Grim Reapers who have this disease, I mean?”

    “... Eventually, the roots of the flowers take solid root in their lungs and they die from asphyxiation. Not that it is the first time for most of them.” Ciel shuddered and tried to take a deep breath, a cold feeling spreading through him. “I must wonder who could have captured the attention of such a heartless dog,” Sebastian mused out loud. “And where they are now.”

  
    It turned out that Sebastian needn't wait long. The petals returned with a vengeance every time Lizzy visited, and the cold feeling in his chest grew. Sebastian was always there to get rid of the petals before she could see, and Ciel smiled as he acted like he wasn't slowly dying inside.

    She did not love him.

    It shouldn't hurt as much as it did. He had known the ending of this foolish story from the very beginning. Lizzy only smiled at him, danced with him, talked to him because she loved the person he was imitating. If she were to know the truth, he would never be able to see her again--and the mere thought of it hurt him more than the flowers and blood he coughed out in the privacy of his restroom.

    Sebastian, although not particularly fond of him, sympathised with him enough so that he carefully did not bring up his disease whenever they had arguments or fights. To be pitied by even a demon was a low point he had never thought a human could reach, but he had somehow managed it.

    “You must tell her,” Sebastian advised one day as he waited with a fresh white towel to clean the blood out of his mouth. “It will become a bit more bearable.” Ciel coughed and spit as more and more petals clogged his throat. He could barely gasp for a slight breath, and he was so sure his time was up.

    “No,” he croaked. “She must not know.” He laid on the floor, uncaring of how dirty it must be and how undignified he must look. Blood soiled his suit from where it ran from his chin and dripped, and he could hardly breathe--he had to gasp brokenly for a satisfying amount of air.

    “We must hurry, then.” Having his soul torn and eaten was less painful than having to live and see Lizzy for one more second, and he laughed hysterically at the irony of such a fate.

    When Lizzy found his body, Ciel was far beyond the state of caring. His corpse's chest had been torn open by Sebastian, showing the world the garden of dog roses he had once sworn to keep hidden--even if it had cost him his life. The last amount of loyalty the demon had shown his master by unburdening those small shoulders, no longer carrying the tragedy and secrets as he was able to pass from this world freely.

    And, even still, she did not weep for the boy who had loved her so. The demon only watched as another blossom sprouted in the small but vast garden, fed by the tragedy of refused love.

    Still, they had failed to find out why he had the disease. Still, they had failed to alleviate the pain even Death could not withstand. An unfinished song of an unsung love. The demon was a witness to it all, and he felt the phantom pains in a chest that existed no more.

    “ _Farewell_ , _Lady Elizabeth_ ,” the demon whispered, and Sebastian Michaelis ceased to exist.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to say I'm sorry... I'd like to.


End file.
